Moonspell
by A Silence in Winter
Summary: Once you start loving someone you can never really stop.  A stolen moment of starstruck lovers trapped between desire and moral truth. Sokka x Yue


**Moonspell**

_You can't buy love, but you can pay heavily for it. – Henny Youngman_

"I think it's impossible." He whispered, weaving soft strands of strawberry brown hair between his fingers.

"Really?" she said with a twist of false innocence. "I think it's quite possible."

"Snuki, it's a scientifically proven fact that I love you more." His fingers began to explore the lines of her chin, the soft crevice between her chin and neck, the delicate structure of her throat.

She giggled. "Oh, I suppose I can't argue science then." With a long, slow sigh, she placed her right hand on the peak of his collarbone.

A side-ways smirk edged its way onto his face. "If you do, I might just have to—"

"That's it!" Toph screamed. Her fingers twisted into the dirt and half-foot cracks ripped the earth open within a twenty foot radius. "No more Snuki, no more pulling Sokka's chest hairs, and don't even think about spit swapping!"

"Toph, calm down!" Suki guiltlessly lifted her hands. "We were just saying goodnight."

"I don't have chest hairs!" Sokka cried as he looked down the front of his shirt.

Toph glowered. "It's so late, it's early. The sun is going to be up soon and I've had to listen to you two coddle each other all night! This girl just wants some sleep."

"But—" Before Sokka could finish his sentence Toph stretched her arms in front of her, closed her fists, and yanked them harshly apart, separating Sokka and Suki by at least six feet.

"Hey!" Sokka said as he tried to find purchase of the shifting ground. "You can't separate me and Suki! Who is older, anyway?"

Toph thrust an accusing finger at Aang, who was rubbing sleep from his eyes.

Sokka threw his hands in the air. "That doesn't count!"

"Sokka," Aang said slowly. "It's really early. I know you want to be with Suki but, like Toph said, the sun is going to be up soon and we have a long way to go tomorrow. Let's all get some rest."

Defeated, and unwilling to accept it for a moment, Sokka hovered with a defiant pout. Logic was often his friend, buthis was not one of those times. Refusing to accept his defeat, Sokka stood glaring at Toph until a pair of arms grabbed him from behind and pulled him close.

"Hi," Suki whispered in his ear.

Too enamored to do anything but let his cheeks flush with adoration, Sokka let Suki hold him and his hands come to rest on hers.

"We should go to sleep, Sokka," she said.

"Mmm," Sokka replied. He was in mild agreement. Tomorrow would be a big day and he was very tired, but so many near-death experiences had taught him the value of fading seconds on a clock. Every mountaintop has a valley to follow, but currently he was peaking Everest. He wasn't ready to climb down just yet.

"Goodnight, Sokka." Suki stood on tip-toes to kiss his cheek, but missed when he twisted away. Sokka looped his arm around Suki's waist, pulled her close, and touched his lips softly, sweetly, innocently with her own.

"Goodnight, Suki." Sokka whispered. With a sweet smile, she gave his hand one last squeeze before letting him go. As Sokka nestled into is sleeping bag, he found that without the distraction of Suki, he really _was_ tired. Unlike logic, sleep was always there for Sokka.

* * *

White. White as death and just as cold. Sokka blinked, hoping this white was an apparition, perhaps midnight sun fever. Without… snow or ice. Was he hallucinating? He tried to swallow his leaping heart only to find that his throat was dry. Undiluted fear rampaged through his veins. The adrenaline burned. He wanted to run, _but where?_ All around was a terrifying sanitarium white.

"H-Hello?" Sokka mumbled. His voice echoed off of walls that didn't exist. Each reflection of his words had his heart skip a beat as the sound slowly dissipated into the nothingness. He took a step. It was solid beneath him, a solid white something. Sokka took another step, watching his feet. What else was there to watch but white immaculate terrain that stretched until the end? Wait, of what? Probably just _the _end.

"I guess I'm alone…" He said.

"No you're not," a ragged voice said from behind Sokka, who in turn whipped around to see who was speaking to him.

"Wh-what?" The word dropped from Sokka's lips like a heavy stone in a small pond. A little old man sat a few feet away, hunched over himself in a stupor. His hair had long outgrown the top knot that seemed to have been done once and then forever forgotten. The stranger's flesh was so thin that it painfully illuminated every bone in his gnarled hands. Most of his teeth were missing but that didn't stop the man from smiling "I said," the old man repeated, "you are not alone." His voice was cracked, however empathetic. It was a cushion, a net, something that spoke of safety despite the foreboding atmosphere.

"I heard you first time," Sokka retorted. "But what, uh, is this?"

The man frowned. "Do you really want to know? I don't think you do. She told me—"

"She? What?"

"There you go with your whats again. I'm just tryin' to help you, to do her a favor."

"I… just don't understand." Sokka muttered. "What is—"

Sokka was interrupted. "You don't have to understand. Silly, silly humans." He offered a final toothless grin before smacking his palm against the space that constituted as ground. Starting from the place underneath his palm, a hungry circle spread out in the puff of a breath to devour the white abyss and eventually Sokka's only companion. What was left in its place was a sky the color of a raven's back that arched across the world. Hot blue stars decorated the black night like the purest facet of a diamond. Suspended in the sky was a full moon, round and lovely like a robin's breast. The soft silhouette of a woman from a memory was outlined by pale light.

"Yue!" Sokka's voice cracked but didn't break. He tried to move but something inside of him was paralyzed. Love? Fear? Disbelief? It kept Sokka from running across the sky. As his eyes followed her shape, a rush of memories heavy enough to make him sweat weighed on his brain. He remembered all of it. Every beautiful, guilty, loving, sultry, tired wish he ever cast into the ice and snow.

A gentle warmth touched his cheek. Her fingers cupped his face tenderly. The smell of vanilla and pine filled him up completely. So distinctly her own. Inside of Sokka's chest his heart fluttered, hoping for an instant that she would kiss him for the third time and something magic would happen, perhaps their descent to earth together as humans. Hee was denied this paltry desire.

"It's been awhile," She said. A smile marked her pretty face.

"Yeah," he replied. "Awhile."

"I remember your smile," Yue said. "Where is it? Can I see?"

Sokka pulled the corners of his lips up in a poor attempt. Yue frowned. "What's wrong, Sokka?"

"Nothing. I'm happy to see you."

A pregnant silence drifted between them. After a long moment, Yue finally rippled the still air.

"Her name is Suki, right?"

Sokka felt as though he had been hit in the stomach. He didn't want to address the almost insidious fact that he had moved on, but his little warrior woman was someone who made an impression his heart. Yue had turned into nothing more than ashes in the wind. Suki, so loving and present when the world was perfectly sane was presently absent. Looking at Yue he could forget that shape in his heart made especially for Suki. Nothing here was very logical but with Yue in front of him he wasn't really sure if he wanted it to. But he had to pop the question.

"Are you real, Yue?" he asked.

She frowned. "Yes, yes I am."

"So this isn't just a dream?"

"Not for me, it isn't."

Sokka tilted his head. "What do you mean?"

She shook her head back and forth. "Does it matter, Sokka? I had to ask La so many times to pull you here, I—"

Sokka took her hand and laced their fingers together. Somehow, he managed to pull together a smile that was one part happiness, four parts pain, and three parts regret. Yue drifted closer, resting her forehead against Sokka's. He would never tell, but every breath of vanilla-pine he took made his heart beat all the faster. Hurt and desire mixed together inside of his chest, reaping him apart piece by piece. Here and there existed together in a paradox of pain.

What if Suki found out? She wouldn't. How could she? Did that mean this was okay?

He could remember the taste of Yue the first time her warm lips found his, a spark of heat in the cold north. The feeling of her human hand, smaller than his own and enchanting for no other reason than that it belonged to her. Again, Sokka could see the sad tears that stained Yue's pretty cheeks when her father painted red on his forehead, a guilty pleasure Sokka allowed himself to keep. And then there was the feeling of the only time he held her in his arms, when he caught her dead body.

"Sokka?"

"Yes, Yue?"

"Can we do an activity together?"

Sokka laughed. He laughed and he couldn't stop. It was like a flower blooming in the grunge of a metropolis. Something lovely and beautiful that had risen only to choke on the irony of its existence.

"Sure, Yue, whatever you want." He managed to eek out between jilted giggles.

Yue's fingers touched the naked place where her neck met her collarbone. "I want to kiss you without guilt."

"Wait—" She didn't. Before Sokka could say anything Yue's lips were once again on his. He could taste her honey and smell her purity as it stained his red. The want he felt was suddenly turned into disgust for himself as he savored her lovely flavor. His arms ached with a longing to hold her against him, this time living and whole. It was a force of nature he couldn't see, hear, or even explain that kept his arms from taking her against him.

For the very first time Sokka understood why Yue had been afraid to be his friend at the North Pole. She was afraid of this black feeling that was presently invading every crevice of his soul. He couldn't pour himself into Yue without remembering a certain painted warrior and her beautifully imperfect smile. Sokka knew in his head that it was logically impossible but it sure felt like his heart had dropped out of his chest and was bleeding like a pathetic animal on the floor.

Sokka took Yue's wrists and gently pushed her back. "Yue, I can't."

Her chest rose with a breath full of words, but she hesitated and then exhaled, choosing to give it to the wind and try anew. "I knew you had to wake up sometime."

"So this is a dream?"

"For you."

Sokka was silent for a moment. Then he said, "Couldn't I stay asleep?"

Yue frowned. "No, I would never allow that, Sokka."

"But," he clenched his fists. He felt the threat of hot angry tears burning inside of his skull. "Why did you bring me here then? To tease me, Yue?"

It was heavy as lead and just as detrimental. "Because I'm selfish."

All of Sokka's frustration vanished like smoke and mirrors. He dropped to his knees. "I can't do it, Yue. I can't have it both ways. This hurts really bad."

"I know," she said. "I'm sorry. It's just that I, well, I still—"

"Me too, Yue."

"I wish I could make it stop, Sokka, I really wish I could." Yue couldn't meet his eyes anymore. She had fallen victim to a terrible pain. Seeing him and knowing that his arms belonged around another was the crash and burn every girl ultimately finds the pieces of herself dying to. The moon maiden had been caught in the net of her own desires and now Sokka was being constricted too.

She shook her head back and forth. "It just won't. I'm sorry. It hurts me too."

Sokka closed his eyes. This place—Yue—It was too much. He was used to cultivating a plan and following it to presumed success. He liked facts, charts, maps, and tangible things that could be explained, things that were there in the same place when you wake up as when you went to sleep. This something that was rifting his heart was completely illogical, but rivetingly physical in the sickened beat that drummed against his ribs.

He held his head in his hands. "I told you, Yue, I can't do it. I can't be with you and Suki at the same time. I just… No. I can't."

Yue's hands found his. Their soft warmth almost brought him back to tears, this time cold and sad. "I know," she said. "which is why I am giving you back to her."

Sokka swallowed hard. "I still have feelings for you, Yue. I just—"

"I know." She turned his palm over and placed her other hand in his. "In this world, you're just as much memory to me as I am to you. So I will be waiting."

"Waiting whe—Ah!" Sokka yelped as the non-existent ground he had been standing on evaporated, along with Yue. The night sky perished, returning itself to the white and nothingful abyss. He could hear the old man laughing, and somewhere tears falling from Heaven. And then it was all gone.

* * *

"Calm down! Look, I can just do this." Sokka's heart jabbed at his chest as if it was trying to escape. That voice was one he recognized as comfort and safety. His sister.

"I can hardly see in this. Do something, sugar queen." Toph, biting and sarcastic as ever. He was back, but did he really want to be? Was that dream better? He groped for something to hold. His fingers raked wet grass and stirred a fresh scent in the air.

"One more time Toph," Katara shouted back. "and you're getting drenched!"

"Bring it!"

"Oh it's brought!" And then a girlie scream of horror.

Sokka blinked. What he could see through the branches of the tree above was a dingy and gray sky. A pitter-patter rhythm of rain was his music. The earth smelled damp and wet. He felt heavy.

"Hey!" Suki's face popped in front of his own, her infectious and imperfect smile spreading from ear to ear. "You're awake, sleepyhead!"

And far away, he thought. Sokka stuffed his face with a smile and said, "Good morning, Suki."

"Sokka!" Aang bounced over to the tree. "Hey, everything is packed, are you ready?"

Rubbing his eyes, Sokka looked to Toph and Katara, who were flinging mud and water at each other. He'd never say it, but for once Katara was winning, despite the fact that she was drenched in mud. Toph could see very little thanks to the downpour. Aang was leaning over him with Suki, offering blissfully innocent smiles. Appa was sheltered underneath the other side of the tree and Momo was looping through the branches, no doubt searching for fruit.

Sokka closed his eyes and stood up. "Yeah," he said. "I'm ready." It was so utterly normal, and just as equally painful.

_

* * *

_**A/N:**_ I love the special little relationship Sokka and Yue had. I was so sad when she turned into the moon spirit... I felt they needed more love, so here it is! Thanks so much for reading!__  
_**Disclaimer: **_Avatar: The Last Airbender and all of its characters belong to Bryke and Nickelodeon. Quote at the top belongs to Henny Youngman and the lyrics at the end belong to TBM and their lovely song To Die For.  
_


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